Parashat Vayigash

Eating Holy Food in a Holy Way

What can we do with knowledge of the sources of our food?

Rashi's description of a localized, personal agriculture may serve as a model for how to grope our way back from the tortured complexity of the industrial food chain towards a healthier relationship with what we eat. Maybe the crusty Cambridge professors were right: the degradation of our food is a worthy subject of conversation for anyone's dinner table.

Julian Sinclair is an Orthodox rabbi living in Jerusalem. He is co-founder and Research Director for Tikkun Olam--Jewish Initiative on Climate Change. He recently served for four years as campus rabbi at Cambridge University in England. Rabbi Sinclair holds a BA from Oxford University, an MPA from Harvard, and is completing a doctorate on the thought of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, the 20th century philosopher-mystic.